The Big Black Dog
by Mystic25
Summary: Sam really wished that dog had eaten him because Dean's airplane with the spoon routine was more painful than the prospects of being sewn up without any pain meds.
1. Chapter 1

"The Big Black Dog"

Mystic25

Summary: Sam really wished that dog HAD eaten him because Dean's airplane with the spoon routine was more painful than the prospects of being sewn up without any pain meds.

Rating: T for blood, medical stuff, and references to violence.

AN: Hello everyone! I haven't been neglecting you…not much…okay I have, I just have been working on – um, *coughs* other projects. (flees to hills). So in apology I decided to do a lighter summer fare. Just Sam and Dean and hunting aftermath. Yay!

A/N #2: This is set before Sam undertook the First Trial, so he's still healthy-at least until I got a hold of him.

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**xxxxxXxxxx**

"_The big black dog, bit a big black bear, made the big black bear bleed."_

~Tongue Twister

**xxxxXxxxx**

* * *

The story started on what was one of their weirdest cases yet. And that was a pretty damn high standard to reach.

Residents in a five block radius of downtown Topeka reportedly being mauled by a lone black wolf.

They had first sat down at their "Home Base" (Dean's words, not Sam's) to rule things out.

Hellhounds had been ruled out first. No strange men in Armani suits, or hot chicks in low cut black dresses had rolled into town ten years ago granting wishes for make out sessions. And the dog had been reported as a _visible_ creature. Huge, hairy black. Described by one local stoner teenager as having: "giant mofo teeth man!"

Werewolf lost as much credibility as hellhound because the lunar calendar wasn't due a full moon for 20 more days and nine more hours.(Sam had checked, Dean had called him a giant nerd). Dean had suggested Sirius Black and had been smug about it until Sam asked him how he knew who Sirius Black _was._ Dean shut up after that.

That left them virtually stumped on leads.

Until Sam suggested something way out of the ordinary , for them at least - a simple rabid dog attack.

They had both looked at each other a bit cock eyed because normal things were _abnormal_ for them. But even with what Dean called "normal banality" there were still no solid leads. No outbreak of rabies reported by any of the local animal shelters in the city, no reports of wolves entering the area from the Wildlife Federation.

But, when Sam had dug through the Topeka police reports, he had produced something of a lead. Something of a very _odd _ lead.

Two weeks ago a college freshman, Tanner Milton had been killed in a car accident.

Apparently Tanner had worked part time at the local ASPCA. And also apparently, when he wasn't walking or feeding stray dogs, he'd been getting some action with one of the shelter behavioral specialists. (Sam had warned Dean against any bestiality or "doggie style jokes." Dean hadn't listened.)

The raw end of the deal for Tanner. Rumor had it that this woman slept with _every_ guy in the ASPCA. And when Tanner had found out, it wasn't pretty. He tried to run her over in retaliation after she got off her from her half day shift on a Wednesday. He would have succeeded in his plan, if he hadn't been hit himself by an elderly motorist in a Honda Rav 4.

None of that part was _actually _weird.

Where it started to get weird was when Sam saw a mention of someone named "Bruiser" in the police report, followed by a series of non legible scrawls, like someone had been drunk writing it. Dean called it a dead end lead, but Sam had a weird hunch. He went to the ASPCA the next day and had questioned the workers and had finally gotten the name of the paper with an article about Tanner's death. In it, it talked about. "Bruiser" a local favorite Black Mastiff, who had been sheltered by the ASPCA. According to the story, the dog suddenly switched from his mild mannered temperament and started showing signs of what the shelter vet had called "end stage rabies."

Dean had of course asked what the friggin point was, interrupting Sam who had read on:

The dog, "Bruiser" was scheduled to be put down the next day. But when the workers had come to retrieve him from his cage, the dog was gone from a locked kennel cage. The door had been _removed _completely from its hinges. The reported 'black dog attacks' had started two days later. All of the victims being male workers at that same ASPCA.

Sam's hunch from this article was a completely insane one, even for them. What if the ghost of that kid had possessed the body of the dog, and had broken out of his cage to exact some sort of (fetish, Dean had called it) revenge on the men for sleeping with the same woman Tanner had?

Dean snorted at that, Sam said _c'mon_. And to further tease his little brother Dean had pointed out that crazy eyed guy's family had cremated him. But then Sam had been approached by a worker at the ASPCA and the last, weirdest – and grossest part finally came out.

It seemed that Bruiser was on a walk with said ASPCA worker the afternoon Tanner bought it. And apparently Tanner wasn't hit by a car, he was hit by a _bus _and was splattered all over the road. Someone was obviously really, _really _ drunk at the police station when they had written the original report on the incident. The ASPCA worker was the one who had called 911, but not before good old Bruiser had started sniffing around what was left of Tanner's body, mostly a finger bone, which the dog picked up like a chew toy.

The volunteer was a bit ("_totally,"_ Dean offered over the phone to Sam after meeting with the skinny teen.) disgusted at the dog's "deed" , and hadn't told police. He found Bruiser chewing on the bone the next day in his cage and tried to get it away from the dog. But, Bruiser got all insane and in the kids words to Dean: "tried to eat him, but not the good kind of _eat_, you know, from vaginas."

So when what was _left_ of Tanner had been scrapped off and pressure washed off into a pile to be cremated, Bruiser was happily chewing on a snippet of Tanner's remains.

Sam's crazy idea actually started to make _sense._ Which scared Dean more than anything.

The dog could have been possessed by Tanner. Human spirits being that possesed animal bodies were rare, but not un heard of. Especially in Native American cultures. If Tanner's ghost had, what Dean called "enough balls" he could have pulled something like this off. And just like that, _boom,_ crazy ghost possessed dog killer lead. Stranger things had happened with them, so they just finally went with it.

They tracked the locations where a black dog had last been sighted. And sure enough, a black mastiff had been reported by neighbors to be around the apartment complex of one Jenna Elkins- the same Jenna Elkins who had gotten her fair share of action against the ASPCA kennels.

So they staked out Jenna's apartment. Dean said she had great legs in her yoga pants, but he shut up when an enormous black dog loped out behind some trashcans as just as Jenna had capered up the stairs from a night out.

Jenna at first had turned, _not screamed _ and had simply called: "here boy!" when she saw Bruiser, like a bit of an idiot.

But then Bruiser's teeth barred, his hackles raised, and he growled that deep growl Dean had heard from one too many junk yard dogs. And then Jenna finally screamed.

If Dean didn't believe that the dog was possessed by a ghost, the solid black ectoplasm that dropped from the dogs mouth instead of drool clinched it.

Dean had rushed Jenna, and Sam had rushed the dog moments before Bruiser attacked. At least moments before he attacked _Jenna._ Sam, naturally, had the bad luck of Sam Winchester and the Mastiff turned on him, going immediately for his throat. Sam dodged the dog's bared teeth, but not before the front canines bit into his neck.

There was a moment, a long painful gasping one, when Sam couldn't breathe, and his blood poured slick and warm down his throat, and Dean screamed out his name. Then he was stabbing his hunter's knife up into the dog's chest.

The dog howled and released him. It was then that Sam noticed the odd addition of a finger bone dangling from the collar around his neck.

Sam didn't have time to question how the hell a dog managed to get someone to turn a finger bone into a collar charm so he could exact his spirit revenge. He just rolled, yanking hard on the leather collar. It snapped off the dog's neck, and Dean torched it with his lighter. Sparking and billowing smoke shot out of the dog's mouth and evaporated, and the Mastiff fell over in a dead drop on the pavement.

Then it was over. The Mastiff was bleeding and whimpering. And Sam was just bleeding. Dean approached the cowering dog, gun drawn.

But Sam jumped to his feet faster than would be expected for someone who had just been lunged at in the neck by a crazy ghost possessed dog, and told Dean to leave the dog alone. That it was over, and something about puppy rights because Dean stopped paying attention and started getting pissed. Because Sam was bleeding like escaped prey and he was trying to save a damn dog.

Dean cursed a lot of good things at his brother, but ultimately Jenna had interceded. She was shaken up, and scrapped up, but agreed to take the dog back to her home and find a way to help it. Dean told Sam it was his big pleading eyes and blood loss that made her do it, and also called him a dumb ass.

Dean helped his brother to the car, there had been a brief arguments about a '_hospital'_ that Sam had refused, and still refused over the 3 hours Dean drove them back to the Men of Letters bunker, telling him that if he bled out all over the upholstery he was going to be pissed off and make him clean it off. This hadn't been said as a real threat, because there had been too much worry behind it for it to amount to anything.

The drive from Topeka to Lebanon took three hours. A ride made exceedingly longer because Dean decided to keep stopping about every three minutes on the drive in order to check the field bandages around Sam's neck. On one of these times he tightened it so much that Sam choked and coughed out the word: '_air'_ like a raspy ghost escaped from a haunted house.

They finally arrived safely in their 'home,' Dean hauled Sam into the library, the room with the most amount of light, shoved his brother into a chair; and Sam spread out their first aid kid on the table top.

And it was where both brothers found themselves when Sam wanted to choke Dean under.


	2. Chapter 2

**xxxxXxxxx**

"_Yeah, we're_ _doing the whole airplane with the spoon thing."_

~Dean Winchester

"Supernatural" Episode: "The Great Escapist."

**xxxxxXxxxx**

* * *

"Come on Sammy," Dean dive bombed a spoon right at Sam's bloody face.

Sam glared at him with a narrowed eyed look that would've made that enormous Black Mastiff recoil had it not been too busy being possessed and trying to rip his jugular out.

"Dude-" Sam's voice sounded like what crap aspired to be when it grew up. "How is this helping?" Sam tried to using as few words as possible. His neck felt like it had dog teeth _stuck_ in it. He knew for a fact that it didn't. Because Dean had checked meticulously when they entered the bunker and he had plunked him down in the nearest chair. It had been awkward and uncomfortable as Dean had breathed stale coffee breath in his face, a shaving mirror poised at an angle around at his bleeding neck checking for teeth like it was a gift horse that had bitten him instead of a dog.

Sam really wished that dog _had_ eaten him because Dean's airplane with the spoon routine was more painful than the prospects of being sewn up without any pain meds.

As was watching as his brother waved around a congealed mass of baked beans stuck to the spoon like cement making motor boat noises like Sam was a baby learning how to chew and swallow.

"It's a distraction," Dean responded, bringing in the spoon for a landing."Mostly from me killing your ass for talking me into driving you _three_ hours back here with a neck full of bloody teeth holes." Dean tried to 'land' the spoon into Sam's mouth before Sam smacked said spoon out of his hand.

Dean stared at Sam and the clattering noise of the spoon as it crashed to the floor, and splattered beans on his boots. "We don't have any pain meds Sam!" Dean said like it explained his actions.

It didn't.

Dean eyed his brother like he had when Sam was 5 and had escaped out the motel to pet the dog across the busy 2 lane highway. Dean had been forced to chase Sam down like it was a live version of Frogger. "Look man, you've already used up your Stupid Quota for the day, so how about you let me handle this?"

"You want to _handle_ a bleeding neck wound with airplane noises and baked beans, and _I _used up my Stupid Quota for the day?" Sam looked at Dean with a bit of a head cock. Part of it was stunned at Dean's sense of logic, and part of it was just plain wincing because getting mauled by a crazed up possessed dog hurt a fucking shit load, critical or not.

"Just shut up and let me dress your neck, Sam." Dean growled.

"Dean it's just a flesh wound," Sam rotated his neck to prove his point. The gesture made his skin burn like hot flames and leaked more than a healthy amount of blood through field bandage, like his body was saying 'screw you for moving asshole.'

"Yeah and Lucifer's just a Crossroad's Demon," Dean pulled the bandage down from Sam's neck. Even with three hours of pressure, blood ran freely down jagged puncture holes against his younger brother's skin. It streaked down the tendons in Sam's neck and puddle in his Adam's Apple.

Dean probed the area with both of his thumbs. More blood oozed out like an over saturated sponge.

Sam jerked like he'd been electrocuted.

"Fucking-" Dean tried to reach for Sam again but his brother smacked his hand away with a jerk of his fist. "It's like _2 micrometers_ away from your jugular man; this needs a damn hospital!"

"Yeah, and what are we going to tell them Dean?" Sam shifted his long legs under the table in their library. "I got mauled by a ghost dog in downtown Topeka? Just sew it up and I'll be fine."

"What part of _two millimeters from your jugular_ don't you understand Sam?" Dean wanted to smack his little brother on the back of the head. "If I'm off with that needle by a _degree_ you're going to bleed out!"

"Dude, you've got to stop basing your medical field training on episodes of _ Dr. Sexy MD,"_ Sam raised the bandage back up to his neck and re applied pressure. The bandage was white and was now coated in damp patches of blood making it resmble bizarre red Dalmatian. "Come on, you know as well as I do, if this had gotten into my jugular I wouldn't be sitting up and talking." Sam's voice reeked logic the way his neck currently leaked blood. "If I haven't bled out by now, then I'm not going to bleed out. So can we just get this over with?"

Dean pointed a finger at Sam. "First off, _Dr. Sexy_ is an _classic_ Sam-"

Sam snorted, which made him grimace from the jagged holes that were currently in his neck.

"And second off, I don't know why you're so ready to get your neck sewn up sans anything but feeling a needle poking holes through where you breathe and half the blood supply runs to your heart."

"Because our other options are so stellar?" Sam's returned. "Knock over a CVS for Vicodin. Or find a local hospital, make up a lie about me being mauled by a bear. Then have to duck psyche hold by you feeling up the admit nurse so we can escape back here?"

"One time Sam," Dean's finger pointed again at his brother. _"One_ time I said to use to 'you got mauled by a bear' excuse when that Chubacabra tried to snack on your face, and you're still not letting it go."

"Dean, I'm _going_ to bleed out if we keep discussing this," Sam removed a hooked needle attached to a suture thread spool from their field surgical kit that he had unrolled on the table top. He held out the needle to Dean."So how about we try that preventative measure I've heard about?"

Dean snatched the needle from him. He unwound what he deemed would be a decent amount and cut it with a pair of tiny metallic scissors that he pulled out from the kit.

He stood over his brother, who reached a five foot height _sitting down_. "Dude, get on the table, I'm not straddling you."

Sam glared at him. "Okay, thanks for the mental image-"

"Sam, sit over there before I make you sew yourself up!"

Sam stood up from the chair he'd been sitting at and climbed onto the table top with a map embedded under a thick layer of varnish. The tips of his mud caked shoes scrapped the ground and he fought hard against the overwhelming urge to swing his feet just to piss Dean off.

Dean opened a bottle of liquor that sat beside the kit and poured a small amount of it on the needle head.

"You know there's rubbing alcohol in the bathroom, " Sam reminded.

"I'm feeling nostalgic," Dean returned setting the half full bottle down beside Sam's left leg. During their Pre Bat Cave days, before they had such handy things as rubbing alcohol and A&D Ointment, they had always used liquor to clean out their wounds.

"I thought you said we were out of pain meds."

"This isn't pain medicine Sam," Dean stared at the label on the bottle like it was a particularly good looking woman stripping in front of him. "This is just _regular_ medicine."

Sam huffed at his brother. "Since when is there a difference?"

"Since now." Dean returned. He tipped the bottle to his lips and downed several healthy swallows, "Since Garth was able to swing a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue." He made a face of satisfaction from the smoothness of the liquior going down his throat.

"Dude you just doused a field kit needle with it," Sam still held the bloody bandage to his neck, and stared at his brother like he was waiting for a bus and had met the crazy man who lived in the bus stop.

"Only the best for my brother," Dean offered in answer. He set the bottle down and readied the needle in his hand. "Okay let's do this before you look like an Edward Cullen reject."

"Dean, give me the damn bottle," Sam snapped and held out his hand.

Dean smirked at him as he handed the blue labeled bottle, smirking more as Sam snatched it from him by the neck and took a healthy hit. "I thought you were going for whole cowboy bites a strip of leather thing Sammy?"

'Sammy' gave him a lewd hand gesture and handed him back the bottle. "Are you done being an ass? Cause I'm kinda still bleeding over here." Sam lowered the bandage from his neck. More blood had coated the old stains on the cloth.

Dean tilted Sam's head up, examining the masticated flesh."Well, this is u-g-l-y. Don't say I didn't offer more sterile methods." Torn jagged flesh was visible with brief absence of blood. None of the holes looked like they hit the arteries. At least they had _some_ luck that night.

Dean pinched the flesh closed with his thumb and forefinger, approximating it as much as he could before he dug the hooked suture needle through where the first part of the wound began. He pulled the thread tightly, in and out like he was mending a hem on a pair of pants. Dean had done field sutures so many times that he could've done it with his eyes closed. But he wasn't for the sake that Sam would bitch about Frankenstein scars and a crooked neck.

For the first few minutes there was only the sound of sutures going through flesh and an occasional stoic 'I'm good' noise from Sam.

Then Dean worked a particularly frayed piece of skin through that kept slipping from his fingers like a torn shred of fabric. And Sam jerked back with enough force that Dean dropped the needle and it hung there like a pendulum.

"Easy," Dean grabbed for the needle, a steady hand on Sam's shoulder like he was about to bolt like a spooked horse. "I'm almost done you baby," The words were harsh, but said with enough of a characteristic big brother tone that Sam actually said:

"Sorry."

Dean grunted something, not looking up from his current task.

Sam squirmed through that rough patch that danced needle like pain (all puns intended) up and down his skin. He wanted to take another hit of liquor, but he knew the movement of his throat as he swallowed would only make it hurt worse. So he dealt with the burning pain that hurt more than he was going to admit to his brother, until it was done and Dean was snipping the sutures with tiny scissors blood stained fingers.

The liquor bottle was back in Sam's face. "You good?"

Sam took the bottle from him. "Awesome." He downed three more swallows of the alcohol, grimacing at the way it flexed his sutures painfully.

"Dude, don't steal my lines," Dean insisted.

"I saved your _life_ out there man," Sam returned, swallowing again. "I'm entitled." He passed the bottle to Dean.

"You did not _save_ my life out there Sam," Dean drank from the liquor bottle. "That dog was nowhere near me. You went _Cujo_ on it first before it went _Cujo_ on you-"

"Dude, just say: you're welcome." Sam jumped off the table, his boots hitting the tile with a quiet bang.

"You _didn't_ _save my life!"_ Dean said exasperated.

Sam stripped off his blood stained shirts."I'm gonna grab a shower." He walked with it in the direction of the Shower Room.

"Hey don't get all my handiwork wet!" Dean called after his brother's retreating backside. "Tie a plastic bag around your neck or something!-"

"Eat me Dean!" Sam's disembodied voice called down from where it had disappeared down an L turn in the hallway.

"You're welcome!" Dean called after Sam.

There was a moment of quiet before Sam's voice boomed back a: "Thank you!"

Dean smirked to himself and started gathering up the bloody supplies.

**xxxxXxxx**

**END.**

Reviews are fun to give!

~Mystic


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